Seeley Great Adventure 2022

 Moab is known mostly for its proximity in Southeastern Utah to two National Parks, Arches and Canyonlands. We ventured out and hiked in both parks to explore the beauty and uniqueness of each. Arches National Park has the densest concentration of natural stone arches in the world. There are over 2,000 documented arches in the park, ranging from sliver-thin cracks to spans greater than 300 feet. This area was once a massive desert, full of shifting dunes of fine-grained sand called the Estrada Formation. This sand formed a hard rock that is very porous, unlike the Carmel Formation that is made of sand and clay, which is softer and resists water. Both exist in the park. Rainwater soaks into the porous Estrada Sandstone easily, but gets trapped by the Carmel. It can slowly dissolve the calcite bonding the sand together, “rotting” rock from the inside out. In winter, water trapped in cracks expands when it freezes, then contracts, prying the rock apart. As erosion happens, a variety o...

Robert LeRoy Parker was born on April 13, 1866, in Beaver, UT.  He was the oldest of 13 children born to Mormon parents who immigrated from England in 1856 to assist the church in settling the area. His parents moved the family to a small ranch in Circleville, UT in 1879, where they farmed and raised cattle. At 15, Parker began working on other ranches in the area, where he met Mike Cassidy, a cattle rustler who taught him how to use a gun and how to train horses. In 1889, he pulled off his first bank robbery in Telluride, CO, and shortly thereafter changed his name to Roy Cassidy in honor of his mentor.  Later, he took a job as a butcher in Rock Springs, WY, and became known as Butcher Cassidy; shortly thereafter it was shortened to Butch Cassidy. As time progressed, he used areas such as those that are now National Parks to hide out from the law. If you drive from Bryce Canyon National Park to Capitol Reef National Park on Route 89, you’ll come across his childhood home in C...